


Saddles

by kethni



Category: American Gothic (TV 1995), Veep (TV)
Genre: Crack Crossover, I'm Sorry, M/M, Silly, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-24 23:27:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22066153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: ‘Interludes and timeouts are well and good, Ben, but don’t go confusin’ them with real life.’
Relationships: Ben Cafferty/Kent Davison, Kent Davison/Ben Healy, Lucas Buck/Ben Cafferty, Lucas Buck/Ben Healy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Saddles

**Author's Note:**

> For CrazyMaryT

Since Ben had been a deputy in Trinity, he’d known some drama. Mostly he’d been on the side lines watching Lucas’s drama unfold, but he’d had his own drama. Sure, some of Ben’s drama started out as purely family stuff what with Barbara Joy getting remarried to Waylon and all the nonsense that came along with it, but Lucas still ended up getting mixed up in it. That was what Ben hadn’t understood when he’d first gotten… _involved_ with Lucas: it was all or nothing. You couldn’t just dabble with being on Lucas’s team. If Lucas thought you were useful or interesting then he would gradually pull you in closer and closer, infiltrating your life and your relationships, until he penetrated every aspect of your existence.

‘Am I losin’ your attention, Deputy?’ Lucas drawled.

Ben’s response was muffled. That was somewhat unavoidable since his mouth was completely full. He focused his attention on swirling his tongue in slow circles as Lucas’s fingers tightened in his hair.

He was used to that too. Lucas was not a gentle lover, but not a damn thing about him ever suggested he would be. He was handsome, charming, and cruel. He might lie about day following night and he might insist that black was white, but he had always been honest with Ben about who he was. Not _what_ he was, Ben didn’t know that, and he didn’t want to know, but he had always known that Lucas was a vicious, violent, selfish, controlling, possibly narcissistic prick. Charming, when he chose, intoxicating when he turned his attention on you, empowering and inspiring when he felt the need and he had the patience. Lucas was like… the sun. Unrelenting and uncaring but being cast into the cold and dark was a death sentence.

Lucas pulled Ben back, dragged him to his feet, and turned him around. Ben gripped the edge of the desk. By now there should’ve have grooves in those spots. As he was pushed forward against the desk by Lucas’s thrusts, he thought that he should’ve worn away the wood against his thighs like rocks being worn away by water.

Lucas’s teeth were in his neck. Both literal and figurative. He had Ben by the balls. Both literal and figurative.

Ben knew he was groaning as he came. He knew that his nails were biting into the desk.

Tomorrow there would be bruises on his thighs and his neck. There had been times when he’d had worse. Much worse sometimes. But not this time.

Lucas slapped his butt, hard. He whistled as he moved away.

‘Make sure that you’re dressed up around nine tonight,’ Lucas said.

He didn’t even sound slightly breathless.

‘Are we doing something?’ Ben asked.

‘We’re goin’ out,’ Lucas said causally. ‘Wear your good jeans and a nice shirt. Make sure that you’ve shaved.’

Ben straightened his ties. ‘Some people _ask_ other people out.’

Lucas looked at him. ‘What’s your point?’

Ben licked his lips. ‘Uh… Nothing.’

***

He could feel a droplet a warm oil rolling down his spine. It was a familiar feeling, but it still made him clench his toes.

‘This is supposed to be relaxing,’ Kent murmured.

‘Relaxation is stressful,’ Ben grumbled.

‘The doctor said –’

Ben groaned loudly. ‘Why the fuck would talking about the doctor be relaxing?’

‘You said relaxation was stressful,’ Kent pointed out.

Ben rolled onto his back. ‘I’d rather go out and get drunk.’

‘That’s your answer to everything,’ Kent grumbled.

‘Tell me something it doesn’t fix.’

‘How long have you got?’

Ben Cafferty was used to stress. He’d already had four heart attacks and he was always waiting for the fifth to come around. He’d burned through wives, girlfriends, and mistresses like they were going out of fucking fashion. Kent was the first man he’d ever fucked. The first man he’d ever let fuck him.

There had been guys that he’d fooled around with. Guys who made his pants tight and his heart beat faster. Mostly they weren’t the same people. Kent was the first one who _saw_ him, like looked past the bullshit front that Ben put up, because fronting was what you did, and saw… Ben didn’t even know what Kent saw. Whatever it was, it didn’t put him off. Ben didn’t like to think about that. There was too much shit that he knew about himself. It was weird to think that someone else could see that shit and not just piss right off. He didn’t know how he felt about Kent knowing and sticking around. He wasn’t used to that.

Kent gave up his attempted massage. He stood up and pulled on his gown. ‘You need to bring down your stress levels, Ben,’ he said. ‘You heard the doctor. If you don’t –’

‘If you don’t then he’s gonna tell Meyer that I’m unfit to work,’ Ben said. ‘I was paying attention.’

‘Were you?’ Kent asked tartly. ‘This is serious.’

Ben looked up at him. ‘This isn’t my kind of thing.’

‘You liked it well enough on your birthday,’ Kent said.

‘That was a sex thing. I’ll put up with all sorts of shit if I’m getting laid after.’ Yeah, yeah, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. It was rude or selfish or who fucking knew what.

Kent narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m going to ignore that,’ he said. ‘If a massage isn’t going to help you relax, what will?’

Ben sat up. ‘There was this one thing I’ve been thinking about.’

***

It was a bar ten miles past the outskirts of Jacksonville, right past the Fulton County limits. Ben had heard of it, sure, everyone had heard _something_ about it. Every town had an area that was known for a kind of dyed-in-the-wool criminality, where the drug dealers and the sex workers jostled side by side on the sidewalk. In Trinity, that was Goat Town. Every county had a bar where there were only ever male patrons. Where the cops only came to raid the place. They wouldn’t come if a murder was reported, but they’d drop everything to investigate a noise complaint. They’d shove the patrons around some, take photographs of anyone rich or powerful, and arrest anyone who got too mouthy.

In Fulton County that was _The Cubbyhole_ , but that’s not where they were. Lucas wouldn’t go near the place off duty, and on-duty he was no better than the rest of the cops. This was _Saddles_ , near enough Trinity to be accessible but far enough away that they were unlikely to be jostling up against people that they knew.

Ben had seen Lucas in uniform in old news photographs but never in the flesh. That was okay. Truth be told, the uniform wasn’t exactly the most appealing around. Lucas looked much better in his usual clothes. Ben… didn’t. Lucas had style, panache, and confidence. Ben had none of them and he knew it.

Ben had put on some jeans and a t-shirt. It was as close to looking undercover as he comfortably got. Lucas hadn’t even made that concession to the situation. He was dressed the same as ever. The same as ever in Trinity got women like Gail Emory and Selena Coombs fighting for his attention. The same as ever in this club got looks that ranged from envy to desire and all the way to anger born of resentful, frustrated lust.

‘Get us a couple drinks,’ Lucas said. He spun a chair around at a table and sat down.

‘Why’re we here, Lucas?’ Ben asked.

Lucas cocked his head. ‘It’s a _bar_ , Ben,’ he said. ‘We’re here to cut a little loose and have some fun.’

Ben grumbled to himself as he headed to the bar. He wasn’t rightly sure he knew what Lucas’s idea of cutting loose was and he didn’t much like what he imagined. As for his idea of “fun,” well, that could go a whole bunch of ways.

He’d seen Lucas drink just about anything being offered, but he’d never seen him drunk. Still, this wasn’t the kind of a bar with a wide selection of drinks. If you were feeling especially fancy it had bourbon. If you _weren’t_ feeling fancy, then it had beer. Those were your choices. Nobody came here for the expensive bourbon or the cheap beer.

Ben was paying for two beers when the door was pushed open and a couple of men walked in. They were older than most of the clientele in the bar, and much more expensively dressed. Ben didn’t wear a suit aside from weddings and funerals, but he could see that theirs weren’t any they’d got from JC Penny off the rack.

They fit in about as well as any other two guys in expensive suits walking into a bar with blood stains on the wooden floor and a parking lot full of pickup trucks. It wasn’t something that people talked about much, but the fact was a lot of the time class beat sexual taste in these situations.

The bar went quiet when the two men walked in. A tense kind of silence that stretched out until the scrape of a chair along the floor. Ben turned. Lucas pushed out another chair with his foot.

‘Ben, buy a couple of beers for our friends,’ Lucas drawled.

***

The bar had private rooms in the back. Cheap by the hour, not that anyone ever needed that long.

Ben Cafferty had been in some dives in his time. He’d screwed in some dives before. Never like this. The back rooms of strip clubs and the likes. He’d always been the one making the first move, the one choosing, not being chosen.

The man introduced as Lucas curled his lip in a sneer. It was derisive, dismissive, and hot as hell.

‘And the rest,’ Lucas ordered.

Ben rushed to take off the rest of his clothes. Lucas picked up his tie and flexed it between his fists.

‘Your _boyfriend_ ever restrain you, Cafferty?’

Ben shook his head. ‘Not his thing.’

‘Get on the bed.’

‘What about you getting undressed?’ Ben asked.

Lucas grinned. He was no taller than Ben, but he suddenly seemed to loom in the small room.

‘That ain’t how this works. Now, you gonna shut up, Cafferty, or am I gonna shut you up?’ He snapped the tie between his hands.

***

‘Dance?’ Ben Healy asked. ‘I never danced with a man.’

Kent shrugged. ‘Come outside.’

Ben laughed. ‘You wanna dance, outside?’

‘Give it a chance,’ Kent suggested.

Ben drummed his fingers on the table. Then he shrugged. ‘Sure, okay.’

He followed Kent outside and around to the parking lot. It was surrounded by scraggy trees that reduced the sound of the distant traffic to a low buzz. Kent walked across to a car and unlocked it.

‘We gonna make out in your back seat?’ Ben joked. 

‘Maybe in a little bit.’ Kent plugged his cell in to the car speakers.

Ben smiled as “Unchained Melody” began playing.

‘This your smooching playlist?’ he asked.

‘Slow dancing playlist,’ Kent said. He stood up, put his jacket on the backseat, and moved close to Ben. ‘I never managed jumping to sex without some affection first.’

Ben had never danced with a man before but found that they fitted together naturally. Kent’s body was warm against his own.

‘Lucas ain’t exactly given to affection,’ Ben admitted.

‘Well, this isn’t about him.’ Kent rubbed his hand across Ben’s back.

Ben rested his head on Kent’s shoulder. ‘What’s the next song on your list?’

Kent kissed him. ‘I think it’s “Let’s Get It On,” by Marvin Gaye.’

Ben sighed into Kent’s mouth. ‘Good song for a backseat.’

***

Politics weren’t Ben’s bag at all. The only election he got involved in was Lucas’s. But the president in town for a debate was big news, even if those secret service bozos were handling most of the security.

The debate was at the school, which meant Selena Coombs was swishing around in a new dress batting her eyes at every man with a gun on his hip. Ben wondered who had decided to make her the moderator.

He straightened up when he saw Kent Davison and Ben Cafferty stroll in with the president. They were on the other side of the hall, but it might as well have been the moon.

‘Thinkin’ of might’ve been?’ Lucas asked.

Ben didn’t jump. He was used to the other man appearing next to him without a word of warning.

‘Maybe,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe thinking of what was.’

Lucas squeezed his ass. ‘Interludes and timeouts are well and good, Ben, but don’t go confusin’ them with real life.’

Ben looked at him. He didn’t know _what_ Lucas was, but he knew _who_ he was. That was enough.

The End


End file.
